Sunday, July 19, 2015

Once upon a time . . .

The game, that is.

It has been a little while since I last posted about Family Game Night. Today I'd like to mention a game that we recently picked up, called Once Upon a Time: The Storytelling Card Game. The goal of the game is literally to make up a story. The challenges are that your story has to be based on cards you've drawn and that the other players can steal your story, taking it in their own direction. The key component in the game (aside from your imagination) is the cards.

The cards above are examples of Ending cards. Each player is given one in secret. This is the ending to which the player wants to steer the story. In addition, the player has Story cards, like the two on the right of this picture:

The player needs to use the Story cards to craft a tale that convincingly leads to their ending. If the player manages to use all their cards they can then play their ending card and win the game. For example, using the above cards, a player could create a story about a BRAVE knight that sets out on a quest to reclaim an ancient CROWN.

As I mentioned, players can steal a story from each other. If a player uses a term that I have in my hand, I can play my card to take over. For example, let's say that another player is telling a story about a knight and they describe him as brave, I can play my BRAVE card to steal the story. There are also Interrupt cards, like the CROWN above. If another player plays a card of the same type (a thing in this case), then I can play an Interrupt and again steal the story. It can get really fun questioning the active player to lead them to using a word on one of your cards. For example, last night I had the CROWN card and my wife was the active player. She mentioned a king. I asked her what he was wearing. She said that he wore a crown. BAM! The story was mine!

Last night, my brothers were over and we played a couple of hands (the entire game took us about an hour). We ended up with some crazy stories - a princess in love with a monster, an orphaned beggar that became a wizard, witches, dragons, fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles. Wait, some of that was from Princess Bride.

Anyway, I highly recommend this game if you are, and can find other people who are creative. The mechanics are super simple and the game can be set up in seconds. The fun is using your imagination to reach your goal and telling an amusing story.

By the way, there is a Tabletop episode where they played this game. I think our stories last night were better. :)